Can there be such a thing as nothing?
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Can there be such a thing as nothing?
Post #1If we try to clear our minds and use them to conceive of nothingness it almost hurts. It's as if it's an impossible feat for the imagination. Logic and language fully support this notion. How can there be such a thing as nothing? Is this logical contradiction just a play on words or could it be the reason why everything exists?
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harvey1
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Re: Can there be such a thing as nothing?
Post #2I think there can be such a thing as nothing in both theistic and atheistic conceptions. The difference though is that the atheist is hard pressed to explain why nothing could not stay nothing, whereas the theist can say that nothing is not forced to remain nothing because a logical God exists. Sorry if I raised the theism/atheism debate here, but it seems to me that this is an issue surrounding the subject.QED wrote:If we try to clear our minds and use them to conceive of nothingness it almost hurts. It's as if it's an impossible feat for the imagination. Logic and language fully support this notion. How can there be such a thing as nothing? Is this logical contradiction just a play on words or could it be the reason why everything exists?
Post #3
No worries about the theism/atheism thing. It's bound to crop up in such a debate. 
Now it's interesting that you think there can be such a thing as "nothing". This suggests that you can see a reason to de-couple language and logic from material reality. Are you sure this is justified?
Now it's interesting that you think there can be such a thing as "nothing". This suggests that you can see a reason to de-couple language and logic from material reality. Are you sure this is justified?
Re: Can there be such a thing as nothing?
Post #4This is a very interesting way to view this. To my mind, "nothing" is a mathematical concept that is required only for comparison purposes. The nothing that might or might not have existed at the moment before the universe was created, for example, was probably not a mathematical nothing, but instead was something else entirely. I don't think that something called "nothing" could ever really exist, because once we ask the question about whether or not there is nothing, we have entered the information about the nothing into the question as if it were something. This, too, seems arbitrarily mathematical to me.QED wrote:If we try to clear our minds and use them to conceive of nothingness it almost hurts. It's as if it's an impossible feat for the imagination. Logic and language fully support this notion. How can there be such a thing as nothing? Is this logical contradiction just a play on words or could it be the reason why everything exists?
What do we know about Gjezallack?
Nothing, except that whatever it is, it is named Gjazallack.
Even in space between the hydrogen atoms, we don't call it "nothing", we call it a vacuum. Semantics? Maybe, but it shows that "nothing" can be purely conceptual -- apart from language -- and still make sense.
Post #5
The mathematical concept of nothing can be thought of in terms of cancellation. It is interesting to consider that there are an infinite number of positive and negative integers, and that their instantaneous summation results in zero.
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BeHereNow
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Post #6
Like so many words or terms the context carries all of the weight.
I commonly think of nothingness in the context of Being. Being and Nothingness.
All things are transient.
On any and all levels, existence of all things changes from moment to moment. Physical presence differs from millisecond to millisecond, personhood differs from year to year. There is no permanent nature in the Being of things. Existence itself, because it is temporal, transient, is nothingness. We see fleeting moments of existence and identify it as if it were real. In a transient sense, it is real. In a cosmic sense, it is nothingness. Yesterday a star, tomorrow a different star, and today an apple.
If Being is Nothingness, I am free to see the potential of “things”. That which might be considered a nuisance, is beneficial as well. The world around me is not an intrusion on my life, but part of my life, part of me. More exactly I am part of it.
There is also the context of nothingness in that which does not exist.
A unicorn may be described as having many characteristics. Among them is non-existence. The existence of a unicorn is nothingness. This non-existence nothingness would be seen to be the same for all non-existent things.
In another context, what would be the difference between nothingness and anti-matter? Does the understanding of anti-matter preclude it from being nothingness?
I commonly think of nothingness in the context of Being. Being and Nothingness.
All things are transient.
On any and all levels, existence of all things changes from moment to moment. Physical presence differs from millisecond to millisecond, personhood differs from year to year. There is no permanent nature in the Being of things. Existence itself, because it is temporal, transient, is nothingness. We see fleeting moments of existence and identify it as if it were real. In a transient sense, it is real. In a cosmic sense, it is nothingness. Yesterday a star, tomorrow a different star, and today an apple.
If Being is Nothingness, I am free to see the potential of “things”. That which might be considered a nuisance, is beneficial as well. The world around me is not an intrusion on my life, but part of my life, part of me. More exactly I am part of it.
There is also the context of nothingness in that which does not exist.
A unicorn may be described as having many characteristics. Among them is non-existence. The existence of a unicorn is nothingness. This non-existence nothingness would be seen to be the same for all non-existent things.
In another context, what would be the difference between nothingness and anti-matter? Does the understanding of anti-matter preclude it from being nothingness?
Post #8
Matter/energy can't cease to exist nor can it be created in a closed universe. But ideas can. I'm wondering if this has any bearing on the Dichotomy between hardware and software?Bro Dave wrote:Asking if "nothing exists" is an oxymoron. I believe something can cease to exist, or can be created. There does exist the potential for existance, and that is a whole other subject!
Bro Dave
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harvey1
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Post #9
Yes, I do. Afterall, is it justified to think that at one point in time intelligence did not exist (or was nothing)? How about life? How about our star system? Our galaxy? Our supercluster? Our universe?QED wrote:No worries about the theism/atheism thing. It's bound to crop up in such a debate.
As we go further and further back, we are justified in thinking that the universe is more and more simple. Nothing is just the most simple state that can be stated about a system. For an atheist all it means is that there are no quantum or physical laws to bring about a universe, certainly there's nothing wrong with that supposition. And, there are no quantum regularities of quantum foam either. Spacetimes don't even exist. No strings. No quantum loops. Just the state of nothing. The most simple and justified state of existence.
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Dilettante
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Post #10
Possibly the concept of nothingness was invented for philosophical/spiritual purposes, just like the number zero was invented by the Indian (and also by the Maya) as a place-holder. Interestingly, the Indian culture seems to be a lot more comfortable with the idea of nothingness than us westerners (perhaps bernee can offer us some help/insight here...).
